


when we all fall asleep, where do we go?

by reyreyalltheway



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alongside A Healthy Amount of Mutual Pining, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, An Ode To Gothic Literature, And More Than A Few Vatican Cameos, And Unholy Matrimonies, F/M, With A Side of Soft Sociopaths In Unfortunate Circumstances
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 23:04:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19344490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reyreyalltheway/pseuds/reyreyalltheway
Summary: Why aren’t you scared of me?Why do you care for me?When we all fall asleep, where do we go?ORThere is a two-hundred-year-old very sick vampire in Sherlock's flat, and John has more than a few questions.





	when we all fall asleep, where do we go?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Honestly, at any other point in my life I might have pissed myself proper. As it is, I had just helped Sherlock solve a beheading by the Thames last week. Turned out to be a basilisk, who tried to drag me into the river in the dead of night. So, getting kidnapped by a super secret posh society is probably a low 4.5 / 10.
> 
> This is my life now, apparently."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A minor trigger warning: This story plays loose and fast with multiple canons from several gothic literatures and other works, which will have mention of the involvement of the church. I won't venture into anything disrespectful (I hope), but if that's not your thing, careful here. 
> 
> This entire monstrosity is planned around four or five key "books" or stories, interspersed between the present-day's events, and the past. I'm so excited to write the rest of it. :)
> 
> Onwards!

 

People fear what they do not understand.

In shadows, in nightmares. In the face of others who are not like them. Where there is an absence of comprehension or truth, people find things to fear. And then, they find ways to process their terror. This—the fear, the self-preservation, the inhumanity born thereof—is what Sherlock believes makes the world go round. It’s in this cyclic chaos that he makes a living.

Suffice to say, Sherlock Holmes is not a man who fears much.

Then again, Sherlock Holmes isn’t like most people.

.:.

It starts with a rainy September evening in London, six years after the esteemed doctor John Watson first met the renowned consulting detective. On this Tuesday—the eight day of not so much as a bored text or a thinly-disguised plea for consolation—Dr. John Watson goes to visit his best friend back at the flat they once shared.

The pavements puddle into dark grey with the thunderstorm underway. Which, as according to the telly, could be the nasty weather coming in from Cardiff. But by John's reading of the rain pattern (a distinct rhythm of alternating rainy-ness), it might also indicate the mood amongst the Faefolk around that area. He doesn’t disregard either possibility.

He should check in every once in a while anyway, but this visit had been on Mary’s insistence. If he were honest—and he usually is about less important things—John would rather his friend be given enough time and distance to “acclimate” to their new life stages. But he’s here, weather be damned.

He still has his spare key, which is good, given the escalating downpour. He exits the taxi in a rush, chucking his head low into his coat collar as he crosses the sidewalk to let himself into 221b Baker Street. He bounds up the stairs two at a time, brushing heavy droplets off his hair as he enters their once-shared sitting room.

He doesn’t expect the darkness _,_ nor the strangely cool, damp air. The hair on the back of his neck prickles with something definitely _not right,_ before a flash of lightning shows a figure by the window.

He freezes.

The figure is the outline of a woman, pensively looking outside. She turns to him then, a crisp chiaroscuro of pale skin against the shadows. 

He is in the presence of a vampire.

There’s no mistaking the blue-gold glow of those irises, the nearly white skin that seems to illuminate against darkness. The chill that leaches through skin.

“Hello, Dr. Watson,” she says, and he should hear the smile in her tone. But panic seizes him, a fearsome vice around his throat. Blood drains from his face. 

“Y-You. You’re a va—” he breathes out the syllables, too familiar with this brand of monster. “You’re a vampire. You’re… not allowed in here.” Rain pelts against the window violently, and he would appreciate the atmospheric effect it’ll lend to his impending death, were he not _about to die._

“As you can very well see, I actually am,” she replies, a touch too conversational. She moves to turn on a lamp, likely more for his benefit than hers. Her demeanour should tell him she means no harm, but he remains firmly within a state of catatonic shock. The fleeting thought of this possibly being his last night on earth is tempered by the fact that vampires do tend to dismember quickly, and all in all, it wouldn’t be the absolute _worst_ way to go...

“Calm down, Doctor; I can hear your heart beating. I’m not here to hurt you.” This time he does not miss the laughter in her tone as she sets herself on Sherlock’s vintage Le Corbusier. 

“I, er, you’re… not supposed to be here— _How’d you even get in?!_ ”

“How d’you think I got in? There’s only one way, after all.”

His admittedly average brainpower scrambles to make sense of how comfortably she fits herself around the furniture, movements calm and certain, and how there is indeed only one way for a vampire to be allowed to enter their flat. 

“You’ve been invited.”

“You’re very perceptive,” she teases, cheeky grin wide on her face. Understandably, his panic mutates into sheer, unadulterated confusion. It would be funny (were it not uncannily melodramatic) to die in Sherlock Holmes’ flat in the hands of a vampire.

“Are you going to kill me?” he blurts out.

Her brows curl, reassuring and amused. “If I’d wanted to kill you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Vampires and their… _theatrics,_ in my experience; not really sure where you’re going with this but I’m not ruling anything out just yet,” he says, words tripping out of his mouth in a nervous flutter. Her calm merely turns into another grin.

“I can see why he likes you,” she comments, leaning forward towards him, posturing to prop her elbow on her knee, her chin on her knuckles as she regards him with dancing in her blue-gold eyes. 

At this angle—and with the unholy panic slowly draining from his system—he glimpses the faint, blue veins around the edges of her face, and beneath the thin skin under her eyes, and crawling up her forearms and neck. He’s encountered this before, in other creatures. But before he could measure out his next words, she beats him to it.

“I’m here to see Sherlock. I made a mistake, and I need his help,” she says, straightening up. John is suddenly drawn to the small tremor in her fingers on the armrest, and consequently, the fading marks around her wrist. She clenches her hand when she catches him staring.

“I see… what was it?” John asks.

“Sorry?”

“It’s… it’s poison isn’t it? What kind?”

His mind often goes “client mode” too fast, asking the right questions as naturally as he is used to. But at the word _poison,_ he watches a dazedness blank her eyes, her smile dropping very slightly. Hesitation made manifest in a flickering moment. 

Only a moment, though. It’s gone before he registers what he’s seen.

“My, my. Someone’s been learning the tricks of the trade,” she remarks instead, turning the topic onto him, and Watson is familiar with the deflecting tactics—he’s encountered it often enough. He lets it slide.

“Yes, well, comes with the territory,” sounds steadier than he feels.

“Hmm, I’m sure. I can only imagine.” 

The succeeding moments are less frightful as he finally lets himself believe he won’t be dying within this evening. She continues to appraise him, eyes with a knowing brightness, as though she were pleased to find him adequate, of sorts, especially if compared against preconceived notions…

“Wait, hang on, sorry, you—” he shakes his head, the previous moments’ terrors returning quickly, “ _know_ Sherlock, don’t you? Are you… here to kill _him_?”

At this, a bright chuckle comes out more like a snort than anything else.

“Oh, how I wish,” she muses, and he sees the fondness in her faraway look. “Unfortunately, he's eluded me too many times, I’ve given up the sport a long time ago.” She looks at him then, and with a wink and a whisper, adds: “I don’t like not winning.”

Oh… _Oh?_

He borrows a page from the Holmes Handbook and deduces what he can: her manner of speaking, the ease, the subtext. That is, before asking the question niggling at his suspicions: “How d’you know Sherlock?”

“We have history together.”

“Like, the school subject or… never mind.”

She laughs out loud. “Literally _history_ , Dr. Watson. As I’m sure you’ve gathered.”

Several things occur to John, now that he can properly observe the woman under the lamplight. One is that she is very beautiful, dressed up for an evening, hair elaborately done even as she’s barefoot, mannerisms sophisticated yet uncaring, with a slight look of mischief behind a calculating demeanour. An _oxymoron,_ if he ever saw one—just so like the friend he used to live with, come to think of it.

Two: if she had any sense about her, she wouldn't be here.

Three: if _Sherlock_ had any sense about him, she shouldn't be here.

(Four: If _John_ had any sense about him, he definitely wouldn’t be here, either. He’d very much rather be anywhere else right now, thank you. True, she might change her mind at any moment and strike him dead, but he figures: in for a penny and all that.)

“Can I… am I allowed to know the name of the, erm, _vampire_ who has access to my best mate’s flat? You know, in case I walk in here one day to find him bled out on the carpet?” 

With one last look of amused appraisal, she says, “Tell him Mina Harker paid him a visit. And that she’d like the pleasure of his company at his soonest convenience.”

_Wait, that’s not right._

“Mina Ha—That’s one of his ancestors, what are you getting at?”

“Oh, you _do_ know your stuff, Doctor!” she says, delight palpable at his knowledge of the Holmes lineage.

“I know Sherlock.”

She opens her mouth to parry back, but hesitates; from the casual observer, it is merely a small crease in her smooth and graceful demeanour, a hiccup in transitioning from one moment to the next. But he recognizes the signs almost immediately. Monsters bleed too, after all; he knows this well.

“You alright there?”

She doesn’t reply, merely smiles wanly through closed eyes as her throat bobs. It occurs yet again to the good doctor that she is _definitely_ in need of more care than she’s letting on… and soon. He’s about to say as much, but she cuts him off. 

“I’ll be going now, Dr. Watson. I trust that you’ll pass on my message,” she says, composed now as ever and not a trace of weariness. Right before a strong bout of lightning flashes the room white and she’s gone. 

Breaking thunder follows closely; he exhales a shaky breath, finds the closest wall to lean on as his heart races. “Bloody vampires and their theatrics” _,_ he mutters to himself, as he pulls out his mobile and speed-dials the one person in the world who would ever knowingly invite a _vampire_ into their flat.

It takes seven rings before he picks up, and by then, John's nerves are in a helpless tangle of relief and agitation.

“ _Make it quick. You know I prefer texti—”_

“What the _hell_ were you thinking, inviting a _vampire_ into the flat?!” He breathes out in a violent whisper.

* * *

 

JUNE 18, 2013

_Sherlock came back today._

_He’d gone on holiday, somewhere off the coast of Pakistan, I think. It’s strange that, in the three years I’ve known him, not to mention in the countless cases we’ve handled, I never saw him as the sort to take holidays. Or days off. Even calling in sick seems tantamount to treason. He was gone around an entire week; not to say that I missed him, God knows how much I’ve enjoyed the seven days of peace and quiet. But it was strange. Though I do think he needed it, and the Monstrum of London can stand for a few days. England didn’t burn down, so that's that._

_Had some coffee with Bishop Lestrade this morning, first. Apparently, our last case had “personally reached His Holiness”, who had given his express thanks. I was, of course, delighted and completely flabbergasted about it, but Greg brushed it off._

_“Eh, don’t be so excited when you tell that to Sherlock. His lack of enthusiasm will disappoint you,” he told me. Greg himself didn’t seem so excited about relaying the news either, I pointed out. To which, he recounted that His Holiness was rather generous with his appreciation, and this is not the first thanks he’s sent Sherlock’s way._

_“He’s a big fan,” Lestrade had said._

_I finally saw my friend, later in the day. He looked… well, he doesn’t really look like much of anything except when he’s bored, but he was tanned, restless (as much as he was trying to hide it), and very, very quiet._

_“What’s gotten into you?” I asked him when I got in, having bought our dinners from Speedy’s. He’d not spoken a full sentence the whole afternoon._

_He didn’t reply. Merely went for his violin and started a new tune I’d never heard of._

_I ignored the whole “brooding silence” act at first, but I did ask Mrs. Hudson about it before I went to bed._

_“Oh, I’m not too sure, but if I can sense it on him correctly, I think he’s sad. Even remorseful, the poor dear. I think he’s grieving, though I could be wrong, mind you. Couldn’t ask him about it when he came in, just seemed like it wasn’t the right time. Oh, I do hope he didn’t get into a nasty bit with a vampire—”_

_“Wai—what?! What do you mean ‘vampire’?” I kept my voice very low, even if we were one floor away. I’d always assumed vampires were well within the category of “fictional”; we had never encountered an_ actual _vampiric creature_ _before, so the fact that they truly exist in the Monstrum was news to me._

 _“Oh, it’s the only thing that ever gets him like that,” Mrs. Hudson said, as she cleared away our teacups. She didn’t realize it was the first I’m hearing of this species, and I wasn’t about to correct her. But if they_ did _exist, and the literature about them were anywhere near true, I wouldn’t fault Sherlock for being so... displaced by the encounter._

* * *

 

Deep in the abandoned Tunnels some twenty feet beneath the London Underground, a wild goose chase is happening.

Well, not so much a goose chase as much as it is a mousetrap designed with a particular creature in mind: a transplanted Wendigo that had come from across the Atlantic, likely brought in by one of the myriad Monstrum mobs hellbent on giving Sherlock Holmes an ever-present migraine. He’s seventy-percent certain it’s the Dakr Elves, but he’ll know for sure based on tomorrow’s stock exchange rate.

A satisfying _thwack_ echoes through the empty network of caverns when Sherlock rounds a corner and surprises the long-limbed, hairy beast with the paperweight he’d lifted from Lestrade’s office earlier. As with most cases, foresight is everything.

He debates on whether to call Donovan to warn her to _not be so bloody stupid_ and keep the Americans out of it—he’s not stepping into _that_ cesspool—but he thinks better of it. It’s merely the adrenaline thinking, of which he has plenty. He can feel it, the high, the endorphins running electric in his veins. The thrill of the chase has always been the most pleasant escape; he’s nothing if not at home in the mayhem of the Monstrum. 

(A pleasant escape from the malady of boredom, the helpless waste of bullets on his furniture, and the inescapable vacuum left by the good doctor and his conventional life choices.)

He wipes off a splatter of blue-green blood from his cheeks and stares at the dead Wendigo at his feet, now putrefying in a state of fast-decay, the liquid of its mass chemically decomposing into strong green mists as it deflates. _Exposure to increased levels of hydrogen at lower temperature,_ he muses, even as he scrunches his nose from the smell, tossing his paperweight about. The smallish bust of Saint Benedict that had been on top of Lestrade’s unattended paperwork is now smeared with Wendigo blood. At least it's good news for the Faefolk in Cardiff; they've got the patron saint of Europe to thank.

It takes him an additional five seconds to recognise his phone is ringing. Very strange, since Lestrade is meant to call in fifteen minutes, and not before...

One look at the caller ID has him frowning. Sherlock accepts the call, bracing his phone in the juncture between neck and shoulder as he produces a handkerchief to wipe the bust paperweight clean.

“Make it quick. You know I prefer texti—” 

“ _What the_ hell _were you thinking, inviting a_ _vampire_ _into the flat?!”_

His breath catches in his lungs.

His mind hits full stop, brakes screeching like white noise in his ears. 

In an instant, he starts running all possibilities, filtered into probabilities. And even then, as he tries to recapture the threads of his focus unraveling at the weight of this surprise, he still has around twenty-five core likelihoods to choose from. None of which are particularly _ideal._

 _“Where are you, anyway?”_ John adds after his stunned silence.

“Doesn’t matter, I’m heading back. Is she still there? Pass her the phone,” he says in a flurry of syllables, pocketing the soggy handkerchief and the paperweight, readying to leave. He feels itchy with unrest, and not the good kind that tempers his boredom.

_“No, she’s gone and wha—who was that?! Why does a vampire have access to our flat? What were you thinking?!”_

“What did she want?”

.:.

“She told me to—” a fresh bout of irritation surfaces through John's consciousness. He's had years to hone his patience when it comes to his flatmate’s callous character, but a saint, he is not. “You know what? We’re going to talk about this. I’m taking your things, and you’re staying with me and Mary, and we’re going to—”

 _“What do you mean 'staying with you’? Don’t be ridiculous.”_ His offense at the implication is nearly thick enough to slice through, voice drifting in and out as though he were in the middle of movements. Still multitasking, John observes, even with the news of a blood-sucking monster in their flat, but of course.

He inhales aggressively through his nostrils. _Lord above, give me patience._

“I mean, there’s a literal vampire who has access to your flat, Sherlock, if you think I'm letting you stay here—”

_“First off, you’re overreacting. She’s had access to our flat for years."_

“She’s ha—what?!” 

“ _Secondly, I’m not moving in with you and your—your—”_

John cuts him off, definitely _not_ in the mood to hear Sherlock speak of Mary, “Okay, okay, before anything else: who _the hell_ is she? Why on earth would you even be… friends? With a vampire, for godssakes!"

.:.

 _All good questions_ , Sherlock thinks.

The train rumbles above him, disturbing debris from the narrow archway leading up to an entry point in the tracks. He debates ending the call now, bristling at the thought of sharing this, them— _her—_ with anyone else, even his best friend. Instead, he puts the call on speaker, pockets his mobile, and ascends the rickety bars that served as a ladder along the cavern wall.

“Alright,” he concedes, climbing up, out of the Tunnels to head back into the Underground and the land of the living. “Be there in twelve minutes.”

“ _Good. I'll wait.”_

He barely registers the questioning Londoners who stare at him as he hauls himself up from the tracks onto the platform. He barely registers anything, save for his disquieted mind, and how hard he’s trying not to run. 

* * *

 

NOVEMBER 23, 2011

_Apparently, the overlarge “basement” of a chapel off the Tottenham Court Road is home to a secret society. Members include “a few 'unofficial but legitimate’ clergymen, some spies, several heads of state, and others who are somewhat of a hybrid of the three”, as I am told. Their purpose, as it were, is to serve as the secret government amongst all classes and species within the Monstrum._

_“Imperium. Silentium. Quies,” is their motto. Governance, Secrecy, Peace._

_How did I—a perfectly average, human doctor—come to this knowledge without the threat of being melted down into my base chemical matter for the Alchemists to play around with?_

_They knocked me out while I was at a pub with Stamford last night, of course._

_I woke up tied to a very comfortable chair, in front of maybe a dozen or so people in a small courtroom, in what seemed like a tribunal with me at the center. I was going to protest that, whatever it was, it was absolutely_ not _me and most likely Sherlock. But it had been so insanely quiet, it seemed like a bad idea to break the ringing silence._

_Also, I was duct-taped on the mouth, so there’s that._

_Honestly, at any other point in my life I might have pissed myself proper. As it is, I had just helped Sherlock solve a beheading by the Thames last week. Turned out to be a basilisk, who tried to drag me into the river in the dead of night. So, getting kidnapped by a super secret posh society is probably a low 4.5 / 10._

_This is my life now, apparently._

_An attendant (her name was Jeanette, I was to find out later) removed the tape from my mouth, and I was asked my name and if I knew why I was summoned by The Diogenes to be interrogated. I’m quite proud to say that I didn’t immediately break into incredulous laughter._

_“First of all,_ no, _I have no bloody clue why I was—what day is it, anyway? Who the hell are you people? And what the fuck is a ‘Diogenes’? Where—”_

_The pretty attendant was promptly signalled to replace the duct tape over my mouth._

_They start to murmur, looking very much affronted at my outrage (which was already quite dialed-down considering my circumstances). A tall man off to the side finally speaks up, rolling his eyes._

_“I told you lot, this isn’t him. How many more times shall we endure such embarrassing displays before you give up your attempt at_ my _case? Speaking of which...”_

_Cue Bishop Lestrade and some of his men, coming in like the cavalry through the double doors of the courtroom. I couldn’t shout my greetings, but I hope I gave enough of an enthusiastic yelp._

_“I’ve taken the liberty of arranging an end to this waste of our times, in advance,” the tall man said to everyone. “You’re welcome.”_

_Lestrade proceeded to echo—in a less condescending, more commanding 'Holy Order’ tone of his—that I wasn’t, in fact, the ‘James Moriarty’ person that they were looking for, and that he knew me and that I knew Sherlock, and that this was all a grave misunderstanding._ _Lestrade took one look at me and instructed my release, turning to the tall man, who proceeded to dismiss the council and somewhat also subtly embarrass them in the same, few sentences. Once I was loose, they both turned to me, the rest of Lestrade’s staff clearing the room._

_Confused as I was, I thought what a fine story this would make, when I told Sherlock later._

_“Apologies,” the tall man addressed me, not looking like he was at all sorry. “I had to make a point, and so it was crucial that they chose the wrong person. Again.” His last word came out like it carried the weight of the British nation (which it did, I was to learn). The exasperation was so familiar, something clicked in my mind._

_“Sorry, do I—” I started to ask, of his possible association with my flatmate._

_“Yes,” he interrupted, and ended it at that. As though he read the trajectory of my thoughts before even I knew them. He excused himself then, saying something like “the government doesn’t run itself” before he bustled off._

_“Er—what just happened?” I asked, still dazed._

_“That, my friend, was Mycroft.”_

_And that’s how I was kidnapped and met Sherlock’s brother. Lestrade promptly apologised and explained what The Diogenes was: a secret society that was one part government, two parts church, and most parts Mycroft. It was responsible for governing Monstrum-kind, just as the Holy Order was tasked to enforce order within the same._

_I told Lestrade to go ahead, as I had left something behind. That ‘something’ being the number of the pretty assistant earlier, who also happens to be an Elf. Needless to say, the hour I spent meandering about The Diogenes headquarters, trying to find the exits, was worth it._

_I recounted the story earlier to Sherlock. Who sniffed amusedly at the mention of his brother._

_“If he asks if I’ve been drinking monkshood again, tell him to sod off,” he had said, trying to hide his smirk behind his microscope. “And if he keeps going on about this Moriarty fellow, tell him I’ve heard better bedtime stories from Mrs. Hudson.”_

* * *

 

John Watson may not possess the same range of sensory perception that his best mate and companion has (this goes without saying), but he has his own class of observations. A quick browse through a list of Sherlock’s many dispositions tells him that tonight, Sherlock is uneasy, as informed by the footsteps going up the stairs: heavy and syncopated.

Upon entrance, Sherlock pauses, not once looking at John, but looking at—almost cataloguing—everything else. John attempts to read where his eyes land: the list of unopened, erroneously-sent letters from the Vatican, addressed to one Godfrey Norton, pinned on the mantelpiece with his family’s heirloom dagger; Sherlock’s skull Jacob, sitting also on the mantelpiece; Sherlock’s current reading, a second edition Gray’s Anatomy, with the apparent wear and tear of section three, and everywhere else. John wonders if the detective were good enough to track the path of the woman’s intrusion, like a lingering trace of vampire on his furniture. 

His curiosity sharpens into admiration when Sherlock squintingly stares too long at his armchair, the very one she’s vacated not twenty minutes ago. 

(John may have seen Sherlock’s uncanny powers of deduction many times, but it never fails to amaze him. The sharp bastard.)

Only once Sherlock is satisfied does he turn his eyes towards the doctor.

“Tell me everything,” Sherlock says, under the tone associated with one of his no-nonsense, deep-focus dispositions.

“Well, hello to you too.” John sets his tea aside on the side table, watches Sherlock enter the process of half-mindfulness: half his brain processing the situation, the other half straining to be present to absorb more data. “And I’m not gonna tell you a damn thing before you tell me who she is, and why you invited her into our shared living space.” 

“Not yours anymore, John, the flat is no longer your concern—”

John groans from frustration. “That’s _not the point!_ Vampires are—”

“Some of the most powerful Monstrum creatures of the world? Easily angered, volatile, often mad to the point of brutal violence, and singlehandedly overrepresented in the category of 'mass murderers'? Thank you _very much_ for the info, John. How very _enlightening_ of you _,_ ” he replies in one of his infamous tirades, sarcastic as it is. He poises himself on his Le Corbusier and adopts what John has come to know as his 'thinking stance': almost-crouch, eyes closed, hands steepled beneath a meditative expression.

“Oh, sod off! You couldn’t, what, at the very least _tell_ me that I was living in a compromised flat with a vampire who could come in _at any moment_ and literally dismember—I’ve had Mary over, for godssakes! Mrs Hudson lives downstairs! And you! It hasn't been three years since— _Are you crazy?!”_

Sherlock cracks an eye open, expression just a notch above _disinterested_ , and a nick below _annoyed_.

“I’ve put myself in the grave for you once before. What makes you think I’d undermine my own death and resurrection by being so careless? _Really_ , John.”

This gives the doctor pause. “Alright. Alright, fine. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply you’d—”

“Be that stupid?”

“—that. Yes, well. I'm a little shaken, so I’m sorry. I just had an encounter with a bloody _vampire._ Last time that happened, you _shot_ yourself.” 

“What was she wearing?”

 _Wearing? Are you kidding me?_ “A lot of leather and lingerie; _what does it matter_ what she’s wearing? _”_

 _“_ Humour me.”

“Alright, um. Dress, like a, a silvery cocktail dress—“

“Formal?”

“I would say so, yeah.”

“And with red-soled Louboutin heels, yes?” 

“Actually, she was barefoot.”

Sherlock’s eyes pop open, focus on John. When he doesn’t say much more, John continues: “She was, um, looked like she was going for a night out. Hair up, lipstick and all, I think. Slightly overdressed, maybe? But her eyes were glowing blue and yellow. And her skin... that’s how I knew. Also, I think she was poisoned, or at least wasn’t feeling well.” 

Save for the very small movement of the Adam’s apple, John could almost believe that this last sentence didn’t register on Sherlock. Almost. He continues: “She told me her name was Mina Harker, said to tell you to see her at your earliest convenience. Obviously not her real name, and I'm sure that’s code for something you won’t tell me so—”

“Werewolf.”

Sherlock then abruptly stands up and starts pacing, hands clasped behind his back as the gears of his mind turn the way of the monsters. 

“Sorry?”

“Lycanthropes. Wolfmen. ‘ _Weres_ ’, as they say. The name she used means that she’s been exposed to a werewolf, likely one that bit her. Hence the blue veins and the occasional disorientation, the only clear symptoms which would lead you to conclude that she was poisoned. Which, in a way, you’re right.” 

The odd, low lilt of his voice at that last sentence is disconcerting enough. But John observes how Sherlock paces, wearing their carpet thin; similar to many, many times before, but only just. “Oh-kay… but that’s deadly to vampires, isn’t it? Instantaneous, if I recall correctly, and that’s not a memory I would forget. You would know.”

“Right again,” Sherlock says.

“So, it can’t be a bite. 'Cause she’s still alive.” 

Sherlock doesn’t reply, merely paces the carpet for one more round, before suddenly stopping and addressing him:

“Thank you for the info, John. I assure you, I’m safe and so is Mrs. Hudson. I’ll attend to the matter first thing tomorrow—”

“Wait, nope. No, you’re not getting rid of me that easily. I’m not leaving this flat until I know who she is, and why you’ve invited her in.”

Watson stands, gives his friend an equally hard glare to show that he means business. Until Sherlock’s eyes finally soften with resignation.

“Fine. But not tonight. Come by first thing tomorrow. I’ll tell you everything.”

He considers his friend’s proposition. Then notes the grim splatter of black on Sherlock’s clothes and neck, and the grimy, soggy hair from the rain, the muddied hems of his slacks. He _could_ insist and stand his ground, but alas, his good nature wins out once more.

“Fine, then. Before breakfast. And you’ll tell me _everything._ "

“You have my word,” Sherlock replies, not once breaking gaze.

Properly assuaged, John turns to leave, and is about to walk out the threshold when Sherlock calls out: “Oh, and John...”

He turns around, prepared to hear _Fetch me my revolver before you go,_ or some other tactless, Sherlock-y bid, but instead:

“Thank you. For visiting. Send Mary my regards.”

For a moment, the doctor is stunned. But regains composure quickly, enough to mutter his acknowledgement before he takes his leave, shaking his head.

_Bloody Sherlock Holmes._

* * *

 

FEBRUARY 14, 2014

_It’s been 86 days since he died._

_I have to say, this journal has been helping. Took a while, though. I hated it, I hated writing this stupid fucking nonsense. These empty words to try and make me feel better. Words don’t change anything. Words—these stupid blog entries that nobody reads—won’t bring him back. But I owe it to the people he’s left behind, to keep myself sane. Mrs. Hudson says it’s what Sherlock would have wanted._

_Greg’s been kind enough to drop by so very often; we have tea a lot. Never really saw him as a man of the church until we’d started talking about God and all that. I know he’s trying to be there for me, and honestly, I didn’t think I needed it. Until I did._

_We talk about him, sometimes. Well, a lot. He told me Sherlock didn’t know his actual first name for their first seven years of acquaintance. Sounds just like him. I told him about the only time Sherlock ever took a holiday, and the peace and quiet I enjoyed then. I suppose I knew he was coming back, so it didn’t bother me so much that he was away. Greg laughed at that, like it was some sort of inside joke that only Sherlock’s friends would ever appreciate._

_He’d told me he believed Sherlock didn’t just go to purgatory._

_“If I were a betting man, I can bet you all the jewels of St. Petersburg that Saint Peter himself welcomed him at the pearly gates. It’s what he deserves after everything he’s done for us. God’s not the type to forget sacrifices like that.”_

_Which was a nice thought. One that I chose to believe._

_I miss him. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I will always miss him, my best mate. My brother, my friend. One of the most human men I have ever known—insufferable, annoying, know-it-all git that he was, even with everything else he was. Everything else he thought he had been. Even with everyone thinking him a monster. Until the very end, I knew Sherlock, and he was a good man who was better than most, in all the ways that matter._

_Mycroft thinks he’s being clever, but I know he sends some of his men to follow me around sometimes. I just wish he’d send less attractive Elves so I don’t have to feel like a blundering idiot every time I bump into my unofficial blonde bodyguard. Nearly broke my foot tripping over produce when I saw her turn the aisle at the grocer's._

_Haven’t heard from Mycroft, though. He doesn’t swing by, doesn’t call, doesn’t send word. I’m not upset. I’m sure it just hasn’t sunk in for him yet._

_On a different, only slightly-related note: another misaddressed letter came in today._

_But it wasn’t from Rome, this time. Had no sender’s address, but still addressed to Godfrey Norton._

_I caved. Since no one was around anymore to tell me I shouldn’t, I opened it. It was from Godfrey’s wife, apparently. But that’s all I read; her first words were “To my darling husband,” and I think I rather lost the appetite to read further. Sherlock never violated Mr. Norton’s privacy, and I determined, neither would I._

_I can only move forward and live on, creating a life that would have made him proud. Even if I have no fucking clue what a life without him looks like. Guess I’ll just have to wake up every day to find out._

* * *

 

As soon as he hears Watson exit the flat and out onto the wet London streets, Sherlock briskly walks to his bedroom. His door is shut, even though he didn’t close it when he’d left his flat that afternoon. Silently, he turns the knob and lets himself in. 

Just as he’d predicted, she is sitting on his bed, hair down, wearing his dressing gown. 

She looks at him with bright blue eyes, the golden glow subdued from the open lamplight, and also from how her pupils expand like inky saucers. A beat later, then a smile—wan and weary and reaching out to him—blooms on her face.

“Mr. Holmes,” she says. Even with the warmth in her tone, he discerns the scratch in her voice.

“Ms. Adler. Care to explain?” he asks, his own tone lowered, the effect bordering on hostile inquiry.

(She doesn’t have to explain, of course. It screams at him: the blue veins, the distinct, greening undertone to her complexion, the thinning of her skin shrink-wrapped around sinew and musculature. But most telling of all is the crackle of her voice, he assumes from the bile clawing its way upwards. All this data processed in the blink of an eye.)

(He’s not asking a question. He’s expressing his distaste of the situation.)

She hesitates, reading him as well. Then, she settles for a quiet, cautious, sad: 

“I think you know.”

At once, a current of rage and gravity and terror passes through him. 

_How did it come to this?_

But as with all forms of unquantifiable data, his first thought is _No, this will not do._ He clasps his hands behind his back, straightens up, goes to his window and turns his back to her.

(There is a beast, swallowing him whole from the inside, and _This won’t do._ )

Something boiling and bristling and brutal simmers underneath his skin. He doesn’t understand _why_. And with the notion of not understanding comes the distress. And with the distress, certain coping methods. Such as mentally directing his anger—this intense rawness, this burning—at her.

“Six months,” he says. Still using the low baritone, because _How the fuck did it come to this?_

“Sherlock—”

“We had an agreement.”

 _She promised,_ says the beast, and it mutates into bitterness and a kind of ache that he bites off, gritting his teeth.

The agreement was two days out of three-hundred and sixty-four. Only forty-eight hours out of some eight-thousand and seven hundred in the year, and she couldn’t even give him that. Not a crumb of connection, not even a cryptic note to let him know she’s still breathing. And now, it’s come to this, and he feels…

_No, this will not do._

“We check in, we work together. We do what needs to be done as no one else can, when we must,” he adds, in his most normal voice, a measure of composure against the beast threatening to lay waste his sense and reasoning. “If you can’t be trusted to hold your end of the bargain, do me a favour and just don’t bother. I’ve no time to play bodyguard.”

There is a quiet that follows.

A sharp and cutting quiet. He can feel his heart’s violent rhythm, and knows that she can hear it too; he curses the stupid, traitorous body he’d been born with.

(He can inhale her, every bit of her, monster and woman, in every square inch of his bedroom. There are dredged-up memories; taste and texture, sight and smell. There have been close calls, a lifetime of ‘almost’s, and there had always been a way out. Between him and the woman, everything else never stood a chance. There was always a way out. It never came to this.)

_How? How did it come to this?_

“I’ve hurt you, haven’t I?” she says, in response to the suffocating silence.

It’s the patches in her voice, the way the syllables break off in tatters, that does it in.

“I’m sorry,” she adds, “I didn’t mean to impo—”

“Show me,” he asks instead. He turns to her, and properly takes her in.

He counts five hours since she was bitten, maybe four and a half.

She understands then, and pulls up the hem of her— _his_ —dressing gown upwards, revealing her thigh, a little ways above the side of her knee. There, under the clarity of a single lamplight, are the unmistakable bite marks of a lycanthrope, flesh cleaned but skin still broken, red and pink and blue-yellow bruising. The question of how someone got close enough to _that_ part of her body is immediately answered by the very faint, almost indistinguishable red marks on her wrist, already healing to a fade.

Every fiber of Sherlock’s body tenses like a cord.

He turns away from her, calmly, faces his window again. Shuts his eyes, calms his breathing.

“Sherlock—”

“Don’t.”

.:.

 _Don’t,_ he says, and the word rips through the air between them. Her senses—dull and delicate from the toxins wreaking havoc on her nerves—catch the sound and sends a line of familiarity up her spine. She sits mutely, the fatigue and sadness and despair and longing inside her.

“I would never stay, if it’d put anyone in danger,” she says quietly.

(It stands for _I have nowhere else to go for now,_ but she’s not going to think about that.)

When he doesn’t reply, or change expression, or give any indication of his being there, except for his racing heartbeat and the intensity of his stare through the reflection of the window, she tamps down her mild dread. If he says no, it’s the end of her. 

(In more ways than one, but she’s not going to think about that, either.)

The thought of leaving his bedroom and facing London half-dead—with Moran on the loose and ready to finish what he started—has her looking away. She scoffs, a smirk at the corner of her mouth, because nearly two hundred years later, and she still hasn’t learned her lesson. Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side, and here she is, exposing herself to the embodiment of all she’s ever lost.

Still, she continues in a whisper: “I’m asking just for this night. Just the one. I’ll be gone by sunrise.”

His brows furrow, eyes narrowing at her through a reflection distorted by the rain and meagre street lights outside. He looks terribly annoyed and she can’t tell if he thinks she’s lying, or if he thinks she’s detestable.

“Don’t be stupid,” he replies, and she opens her mouth to parry—“stupid” is not an easy insult to swallow when it comes from him—when he adds: “You’re staying.” 

“What?”

“It’ll take nine days for the bite to permeate your system, you need to be monitored,” he says, flat and dry and casual, as he moves towards his wardrobe and flings her a shirt and pyjama pants. She catches them out of reflex but her mind hasn’t quite caught up.

“I don’t understand.”

“What’s there to understand,” he replies, not a question but a low, almost commanding statement as he heads to the door. He opens it, but pauses just at the doorway, before turning to look at her once more.

There’s a word, there must be, of the way the hardness of his eyes turns soft and how she picks it up, this rare softness, and drinks it in. He holds a hand out to her. She knows, instinctively, to place her hand in his. He holds her by her wrist, the brush of his fingers electric, her skin reactive, her blue veins like lightning, rippling in branches where his skin touches hers, and he stares at their fingers as though reading them both in the pulse. Which he is; he can now hear her heart beating through the skin of his fingertips.

Through the seething pain of poison, she closes her eyes, and lets him read freely.

She doesn’t know—doesn’t realize, doesn’t _care—_ that a full measure’s breath has been sitting in her lungs for too long, until he finally lets her go. She opens her eyes and exhales, at once breathless.

He’s looking at her now, with a little consternation and a lot of words he doesn’t say.

“Goodnight, Ms. Adler. Get some sleep,” he bids, before heading out the door and shutting it behind him.

It takes a minute before she feels the sentiment crawling up her eyes, even as she impatiently swipes it away with the heel of her palm.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The hardest part is the first step, right?
> 
> If you got to the end, oh my god, thank you? :))
> 
> Words cannot express how completely excited I am for this whole story. I'm sorry if it was a bit messy right now. I promise it'll clean up in the next few chapters. There's not a lot of fics that explore Irene's and John's interactions, as two people who love Sherlock dearly, albeit differently. I wanted to explore that here.
> 
> Also: while the fic explores the complex relationship between the two lonely, intelligent sociopaths hellbent on being their superior selves, I have a very special place in my heart for the closeness and camaraderie of Holmes & Watson. I love their friendship so much, and I wanted it to be a key element in the dynamics of this Adlock piece. Johnlock as a bestfriendship and a brotherhood is elemental to this story, as you will see.
> 
> I'm also excited to write Jim and Molly... but that's for later. ;)
> 
> As mentioned, I'm "rewriting" a lot of gothic literature, so you will read some very familiar names soon. 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading. :) Let me know what you think in the reviews! 
> 
> Much love,  
> <3 Katie (tumblr: reyreyalltheway)


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